History of the Real Madrid shirt
Love them or hate them the Real Madrid shirt is probably one of the most iconic in the game. They have had such an influence that clubs have often tried to mimic their all white kit. In 1961 Don Revie took over at Leeds and changed the clubs strip from yellow and blue to all white in an attempt to make the club 'the Yorkshire Real Madrid'. Crystal Palace also had a brief stint in an all white kit between 1964-65 after they decided to honour the Madrid club who played them in a game to open the London club's floodlights.
Real Madrid were founded in 1902 and have always worn white shirts with white shorts, although the first kit was accompanied by black socks rather than the more familiar white socks of today.
Real Madrid were also open to outside influences though and in 1925-26 they introduced black shorts after seeing London side Corinthians wear this combination. They were impressed by the idea of having a kit that looked like an English team's. however after losing 5-1 and 2-0 to Barcelona they decided they might be better off going back to the white shirts.
Not many changes happened to the shirt in the next few years, but in 1931 the Third Republic came into power and Real Madrid had to remove the crown from the badge.
They got their crown back in 1942 after the Civil War when wrong won out against right.
The next changes came in the 1950s. In 1952 they lost the knots from the collar and in 1955 they changed the black socks to white socks. It seemed to do them well, as in 1956 they won the European Cup for the first time.
Nothing much changed over the years of domestic and European glory which followed over the next couple of decades. The next big changes to the shirt came in the 1980s when shirts were changing everywhere with the introduction of synthetic fabrics and shirt sponsors.
The first visible shirt manufacturers were Adidas and the first sponsors were Zanussi in 1982, shown below by Miguel Porlan Chendo.
Between 1985 and 1994 Hummel were the kit manufactures and Kelme took over the mantle between 1994 and 1998. It was in 1998 that Real won the European Cup for the first time in 32 years.
Since 1998 the club have worn Adidas shirts and although there have been some experiments with the colours of the brands 3 stripes on the sleeves the white shirt has remained. In 2002 the company introduced a plain shirt to celebrate the clubs centenary.
And here are the 3 kits the clubs are wearing this season
First
Second
Third
Comments
Just one error.
You have repeated the commonly held view that Don Revie introduced the all white strip to Leeds United.
No he did not.
It had been introduced several months before his arrival.
And many local fans were still up in arms over the removal of their beloved yellow and blue colours, the same colours worn to this day by Leeds Rhinos RLFC,, and worn by the great John Charles when he scored his phenomenal 42 goals one season. Charles never was to wear the all white strip of his native town of Swansea - whose rugby team, talking of rugby teams, had been all white before Real Madrid, and whose choice of colours was emulated by the Swansea round ball team on its formation in 1912 - until he returned from Juventus for a brief spell circa 1960/61.
In an effort to quell the Leeds fans' complaints (which had a kinda curious reappearance three years ago in the "Vincent Tan switching Cardiff City to red" brouhaha, it was only THEN that Revie promised fans to get his Leeds team to play like Real Madrid.
Hope this clarifies things...it was not Revie's original idea, but the Chairman so decided, before Revie was ever appointed.
Dai Woosnam, Grimsby.
Just one error.
You have repeated the commonly held view that Don Revie introduced the all white strip to Leeds United.
No he did not.
It had been introduced several months before his arrival.
And many local fans were still up in arms over the removal of their beloved yellow and blue colours, the same colours worn to this day by Leeds Rhinos RLFC,, and worn by the great John Charles when he scored his phenomenal 42 goals one season. Charles never was to wear the all white strip of his native town of Swansea - whose rugby team, talking of rugby teams, had been all white before Real Madrid, and whose choice of colours was emulated by the Swansea round ball team on its formation in 1912 - until he returned from Juventus for a brief spell circa 1960/61.
In an effort to quell the Leeds fans' complaints (which had a kinda curious reappearance three years ago in the "Vincent Tan switching Cardiff City to red" brouhaha, it was only THEN that Revie promised fans to get his Leeds team to play like Real Madrid.
Hope this clarifies things...it was not Revie's original idea, but the Chairman so decided, before Revie was ever appointed.